1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to network apparatus, and more particularly to wireless network apparatus, and method of channel allocation for respective radios.
2. Description of the Related Art
In wireless communications, the need for an increase in capacity is evident as subscriber numbers continue to grow and offset traffic loading, as typically observed in major metropolitan networks.
A solution towards alleviating capacity constraints is to adopt smart antennas for wireless switch system in local and metropolitan networks. With smart antennas, service providers can add network capacity incrementally in areas where it's needed. This flexibility allows the service providers to respond to the characteristics of individual cell sectors, which can have significantly different traffic loads. Owing to such capabilities, smart antennas provide as a cost-effective way for increasing capacity and balancing traffic loads in high-usage areas.
FIG. 1 shows block diagram of a conventional wireless switch system connecting multiple radios to a higher layer control. The wireless switch system 100 includes a plurality of radios 110(1)-110(N) and a logic link control layer(LLC) 120. The radios 110(1)-110(N) each includes an antenna element 111, a transmitter/receiver (T/R) switch 112, a power amplifier (PA) 113, a low-noise amplifier (LNA) 114, a transceiver 115, a baseband processor (BBP) 116, and a media access control (MAC) layer 117. The radios are connected to the link logic control (LLC) layer 120 via the MAC layer 117. As shown in the figure, the radios 110(1)-110(N) operate independently from one other. The wireless switch system 100 balances the traffic load by adjusting sector size and orientation and varying cell's effective radiated power.
However, such loosely integrated and non-co-located radio configuration can neither provide adaptation for beam and/or frequency channel allocation to optimize pattern and/or spectrum efficiencies, nor provide controllable and effective isolations among beams and/or frequency channels. Further, the independent arrangement of the plurality of radios can neither offer array gain to extend link range, nor offer multiple bandwidths to extend link throughput.